At least 13, 713 teachers who had stagnated in the same job group have a reason to smile after it emerged Thursday that the National Treasury had allocated their employer Sh1 billion for their promotions.
However, this is half of the Sh2.2 billion, Teacher Service Commission (TSC), had earlier indicated it required to move primary, secondary and college teachers to the next grade.
Yesterday, Education Parliamentary Committee chairman Julius Melly said the decision to allocate that money for promotion was to motivate teachers to render quality teaching.
Mr Melly, who was addressing Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) in Mombasa, advised TSC to ensure all teachers who have stagnated in one grade for years, are given priority.
“We gave the ministry Sh1 billion to promote teachers. There is a band of teachers from grade D3 to D4 who should be given special consideration in the next promotion as they have not been promoted for years,” he said.
He said this after KESSHA chairman Kahi Indimuli, raised an alarm over delays in promotion of teachers in all grades, citing deputy principals who have been denied promotions even after acting for one year.
Mr Indimuli said in most cases, deputies had acted for over six months, but instead of being considered for promotion, they were demoted after new principalswere posted to those schools.
“It is demoralising and diminishing for a deputy principal to act for sometime, and after a short while, they are demoted to either a class teacher or subject head,” said Indimuli.
According to an early circular by the TSC about 4,595 primary school teachers currently in Job Group C will be promoted to Job Group C2.
Those in Job Group C2 moved to C3, and C3 teachers to C4. This exercise was estimated to cost Sh1 billion. The exercise is to start in July.
Additionally, 652 college teachers in Grade D3 are to be moved up to Grade D4 at a cost of more than Sh175 million, according to an earlier communication from TSC.
In this plan, about 13,713 secondary and primary school principals, vice principals, senior masters, secondary teachers, head teachers, and assistant head teachers will also be promoted.
Under this new plan, there will be promotions for 2,733 head teachers at regular primary schools, 1,330 teachers at secondary schools, 1,725 deputies principal IIs, 602 leaders at regular schools, 224 deputy principal IIIs at secondary schools, and 208 senior master IIs.
Overall, Parliament has allocated TSC at least Sh2.2 billion for teachers to be promoted and their new pay catered for.
Ministry of Education officials yesterday told the principals in Mombasa that the government was keen to fix the huge shortage of teachers. On Wednesday, Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu said an additional 24,000 teachers would to be hired in the next financial year.
This will take the number of teachers employed by President William Ruto’s regime to 60,000.
Yesterday, Indimuli asked TSC to review the mandatory five years’ pre-transfer period to two years to accommodate newly recruited teachers that have families.
He also complained that politicians had hijacked the transfer of teachers and were influencing who goes where and who remains.
He claimed some politicians were trying to force teachers who had not asked for de-localisation to be transferred from their places despite.
He promised to expose the politicians trying to instigate the transfer of teachers they were uncomfortable with.
“As teachers, we have been employed to work anywhere in this country and any teacher who has not asked for transfer should not be harassed by politicians,” said Indimuli.
However, Melly denied the claims that MPs were usurping the TSC role of transferring teachers, insisting that the politicians were just helping staffing of teachers, especially in needy areas.
“Members of Parliament are not usurping TSC role. We complement and assist in management and staffing of the schools by giving solutions to schools,” said Melly.
He called for restructuring all schools to create uniformity by removing tags such as national and county schools for a principal to head any school. He argued that promotions such as chief principals were based on this tag, which had made many teachers not have access promotions.
Yes, this is better said than done
How many years in a grade qualify to be referred to as stagnation? Recently , the tsc boss, Mrs Macharia told the parliamentary committee that no teacher had been in a grade for more than five years, yet the teaching fraternity know the facts to be exact opposite. So we can only wait and see how the promotions will be effected. Hope the genuine cases will be considered.